Chamorros

Chamorros

the indigenous population of the Mariana Islands, in Western Micronesia. Decimated in the 17th century by Spanish colonists, the Chamorros spoke a Malayo-Polynesian language. They engaged in land cultivation and were evidently at the stage of the disintegration of the primitive communal system. A small number of the surviving Chamorros intermarried with the Spanish and with the Filipinos and Mexicans serving in the Spanish armed forces. The name “Chamorros” is now applied to the resulting group, which is made up of métis and has retained the old language. According to a 1971 estimate, the Chamorros number approximately 65,000. They engage primarily in land cultivation and are nearly all Roman Catholics.

As a result of the Japanese period, the Americanization of the Chamorro people received significant assistance, because the Japanese invasion and brutal occupation drove Chamorro to their American "colonial overseer, with religious zeal and cultural prescriptions of gratitude and loyalty" (Diaz, 2010, p.

The Chamorro people experience multiple and overlapping identities, being both indigenous to the Mariana Islands and as part of the U.

Outside of Guam and some United States military families, most Americans continue to be unaware of this homeland of the Chamorro people due to its small size and relative isolation up until World War II.

According to this theory, the toxin becomes more concentrated as it moves up the food chain from the microbes, Nostoc cyanobacteria, to tropical plants called cycads to bats to the Chamorro people (SN: 8/14/04, p.

In summarizing this thesis, Rogers suggests, 'A central irony of the struggles of the Chamorro people against Europeans is that, in order to mount a successful defense, the islanders had to become like the outsiders' (40).

OThe Hafa Adai Pledge finds its origin in the inherent spirit of the Chamorro people, the native inhabitants of Guam,O GVB General Manager, Joann Camacho, said, OBy coupling the pledge with the OBuy LocalO initiative, we are able to support local businesses on Guam and offer more local products to our visitors.

During the 20th century, the prevalence of the neurologic disease called amyotrophic lateral sclerosis/Parkinsonism dementia complex (ALS/PDC) rose dramatically among the Chamorro people of Guam and then declined, explains Paul Cox of the National Tropical Botanical Gardens, headquartered in Kalaheo, Hawaii (SN: 5/17/03, p.

After World War II, doctors noticed that the Chamorro people of Guam experienced 100 times as high an incidence of diseases resembling amyotrophic lateral sclerosis than people in the continental United States do.

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